How do you pick the perfect moment to ask your other half the BIG question? How do you make your romantic decisions? Do you base your decisions on your gut feeling or make use of science while approaching decisions on love? Do you have a pro-and-con list that you follow or are there other factors that you base your decisions on? OROGOLD has discovered that advances in the field of neuroscience can go a long way in determining how the human brain makes romantic choices.

Jonah Lehrer, the author of How We Decide, states that studies of the human brain have shown that there is a lot of information that cannot be accounted for. Simply put, the rational side of your brain is not equipped to make decisions like when to get married. According to Jonah, the rational side of the human brain can only take in 7 pieces of information at a time. The moment you increase the amount of information being processed, the brain begins to work like one of those ancient computers.

Due to these limitations, it always helps to listen to the emotional part of your brain when it comes to making big decisions, because this side of the brain can actually process a lot more information than the analytical one. The emotional part of the human brain is known as the Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC). When you find yourself being attracted to a person, a flavor or a sound, it is your OFC that makes the decisions for you.

The OFC is really good when it comes to picking up your emotional cues, whether it manifests in your conscious mind or in your unconscious being. Jonah says that he experienced one of these moments the moment he saw his future wife. He thinks of himself as a rational person, but he ended up getting flustered the moment he met her. However, the problem is that the emotional part of your brain can easily be misled due to external or personal factors.

One of the main reasons why subconscious thinking is believed to be dangerous when it comes to romance is that there are a number of chemicals like dopamine that are at work. These chemicals can easily overwhelm you. Many neuroscientists have stated that it is important not to think about the long term potential of a relationship when you’re on a dopamine drip because it makes you see threads and connections that don’t really exist.

On the other hand, a chemical called oxytocin is more reliable when it comes to romantic decision making. This chemical builds a sense of trust and attachment. Studies conducted by researchers have shown that people who were administered with oxytocin tried to look towards the eyes of other people when compared to those administered with placebo. Thus, when it comes to the matters of the heart, oxytocin provides you with more clarity in your decision-making simply because it allows you to analyze the other person with an eye towards the future.

With the right amount of practice, you could actually learn how to utilize your brain to be close to certain about the right person to marry and the right time for getting married.